Australian photographer Gemma Rose-Turnbull says a Facebook administrator removed two of her photographs from the site’s “Photos” section because they depicted exposed breasts. One photograph showed a baby being breastfed, while the other showed a topless middle-age woman. Turnbull also had “sexy” photographs, such as from a wet T-shirt contest, which were left up by administrators. “I’ve spent five years doing this project and it really has validated it for me that mainstream media says that young, sexualized breasts are okay and that breasts that fall outside those dimensions are not okay,” Turnbull said. “So we don’t want to see old breasts. We don’t want to see breasts being used to feed babies.” [ABC.net.au]

An Illinois judge lifted a restraining order on a “parental notification” law yesterday. “Parental notification” require the parents of a teenage girl to be notified about her abortion within 48 hours of the procedure. Although the judge lifted the restraining order, he approved a grace period for appeals to the law to be worked through in court. [AP]

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed a bill yesterday forbidding insurance companies on the individual insurance market to charge higher rates to women than men. Ritter said gender discrimination has allowed insurance companies to charge women rates 60 percent higher than those for men. [New York Times]

Iowa’s House of Representatives debated a provision of The Family Friendly Workplace Act that would require businesses to allow a “reasonable” time each day for nursing mothers to “express,” or pump, their breast milk. Unfortunately, the breastfeeding provision was voted out of the bill by a narrow 50-49 margin. [RadioIowa]

Georgia’s State Senate passed a bill on Friday that would make it a crime to coerce a woman to have an abortion. A little context: Georgia has become a hotbed of activism around the idea that African-American women are coerced into abortions due to racism. Recently, 80 billboards appeared in Atlanta which read, “Black children are an endangered species.” [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Missouri’s House of Representatives passed legislation today which would require prosecutors to be informed if a teenager inquires about an abortion, even if the teen does not go through with the procedure. Supporters of the bill say it will help catch male perpetrators of statuatory rape. [KOAMTV]

The Archdiocese of Baltimore filed a lawsuit against the city yesterday, alleging the city’s regulation of so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” violates church members rights of freedom of speech and religion. “Crisis pregnancy centers” are often located near abortion clinics and do not provide any medical care for women; abortion rights supporters say the centers give women misleading information about the health risks of abortion. Baltimore recently decided “crisis pregnancy centers” had to clearly state that they do not give women referrals for birth control or abortion. [Baltimore Sun]

Michigan’s House of Representatives has passed a bill requiring emergency rooms to offer emergency contraception (also known as the morning-after pill) to rape victims. The bill is now headed to Michigan’s Senate. [StateNews.com]

Vincent Mickle, 33, of Philadelphia, has been arrested and charged with corruption of minors, for at least six relationships he had with girls online. Mickle, a soccer coach, allegedly talked to girls on MySpace. One girl contacted police after Mickle allegedly showed up at one of her sports events. [NBC Philadelphia]

Bayonne, New Jersey, is nearing the end of a three-month campaign to diversify its fire department, which has no women and only nine minorities. A city spokesman said women have taken the fire department’s test, but not made it into the force. [NJ.com]

The strip club Scores in Manhattan has fired back at a sexual harassment lawsuit from former employee Ruth Fowler, claiming Fowler flirted with her bosses and any sexual acts were “consensual and voluntary.” Fowler’s lawyer has called Scores’ response “the typical lame answer of blaming the victim. [New York Daily News]

The Los Angeles Country Sheriff recently honored three women for breaking the gender barrier in 1972 by working on police patrol in Altadena, California. [Pasadena Star News]

INTERNATIONAL

The Independent speaks with some intersexed Brits to find out what life is like when one does not fall squarely into “male” or “female” boxes. [Independent UK]

A judge in Mozambique, Africa, has released seven people who were arrested earlier this month for trafficking women to South Africa. The traffickers were uncovered by a Johannesburg, South Africa, newspaper, City Press, when they pretended to be interested in purchasing Mozambican girls for sex work. A police spokesman said he did not know why the men had been released. [AllAfrica]

Mexico’s Congress is considering an amendment to criminalize abortion. Opponents of a ban say more women will die from “back alley abortions,” or ones with financial means will travel to Texas to use private clinics. Abortion is already highly restricted throughout Mexico. [Dallas Morning News]

The Court of Appeal at The Hague has ruled that Mothers of Srebrenica, a group of Bosnian women, cannot sue the United Nations for failing to present an attack on Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995. The Mothers of Srebrenica are widows and mothers of men killed during the massacre. [CNN]

France‘s State Council, its top administrative court, has warned the country against a ban on face-covering Muslim veils, in public places, as it might trample on constitutional rights. [Business Week]

One in three women of Arab, South Asian or West Asian descent in Canada have trouble finding a doctor, getting an appointment, or getting referred to specialists, according to a study by St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences. Women in Canada who do not speak either English or French also reported inadequate levels of care. [CTV]

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